“By the time it was communicated,
it was already Stage 4,” Dreifuss told CBS2’s Lou Young last year.
When Dreifuss found he had no legal recourse, he started pushing for a change
in the law.

“Who knows the clock started when
they missed it? How do you know they missed it?” he said last year.

But doctors said unless the bill
is coupled with major changes in tort law, it will have a crippling effect –
raising medical malpractice insurance rates that are already among the highest
in the nation.

“This will drive doctors out of
the practice of medicine,” said Dr. Malcolm Reid, president of the Medical
Society of the State of New York. “It causes many doctors to go to other states
where they have meaningful tort reform – perhaps a cap on pain and suffering.”

Reid said his group is trying to
persuade the state Senate to hold off until there is a major overhaul of
malpractice laws.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has lots
of things he wants lawmakers to take up before they leave town, was
noncommittal.

“Marcia, I think it’s a good
intent, and I understand the need to do it. The Senate is considering the
bill,” Cuomo told Kramer. “And if the Senate is serious about it, I’d love to
have a three-way conversation.”

Sources told CBS2’s Kramer that
no decision has yet been made about whether the Senate will take up the bill
this year.

Assemblywoman Weinstein said her
bill has 38 Senate sponsors, both Republicans and Democrats. She said that is
enough to pass the bill if it is brought to a vote.